According to the statements of many participants of the seminar, praying together with Fr. James, helped them to find peace and joy in the Spirit, and some witnessed of their relief of pain and healing. When he spoke to the people  Fr. James was saying about man's everyday troubles, problems, and their search for spiritual peace amidst fears and anxieties of the modern life. 

In Zadar, on Sunday evening the Catholic seminar of Fr. James  Manjackal "Rejoice in the Lord" ended, which started in the sport  hall of Jazine on Thursday, Sept. 18th.

Catholic seminar was attended by several thousands of people  of Zadar who completely filled up the hall. The archbishop and the retired archbishop with the general vicar of the dioceses of Zadar were present. 

Fr. James said : "A Christian should live in Christ and grow in Christ, because only  then one receives power and energy for life. We are called to stay and  abide in Christ through Holy Spirit, loving God with all our hearts and  all our minds. Do not believe every spirit, because there are many  spirits: the spirit of man, the spirit of Satan, the spirit of the flesh  and cosmos, the spirit of pride, jealousy, selfishness, and those  spirits do not come from Jesus Christ. If we live according to flesh,  we can not live in Spirit and in the truth of God's word". He emphasized that everybody is called to accept Jesus Christ as Lord, Saviour, Healer and Master of the one's life. 

Fr. James Manjackal, 57 years old Indian priest, two years ago had his first seminar is Zadar's sport hall Jazine. He holds seminars in many  countries all over the world, and he is well known for his specific approach and preaching that, as believed, have healing qualities. He is born in India, and ordained priest at the age of 27, he belongs to the missionaries of St. Francis de Sales (MSFS).
 

COME AND GET RENEWED!

P. Isidro Asensio Álvarez

 It was Jesus´s voice, with His eternal saying: COME...!, which summoned us. And, tortured by hunger, tired of looking for food in dark caverns and tired of drinking the dead waters from the mundane currents of this world, we, hundreds of people coming from different areas of Spain, we gathered in Torrecilla de los Ángeles, a picturesque village among mountains next to Las Hurdes.

Some days before, a devastating fire had burnt the beautiful landscape of that area. The inhabitants had welcomed, generously, the people from Las Hurdes who had fled from the flames looking for a safer place. And a paradox..., now it was us who also were received so generously. For four days we fled from suffocating smokes (bad temper and something like that), ours and the others´ and looked, among the singing of the woods and the silence of the mountains, for Him who will come ‘ jumping over the hills’ bringing the fire of the Holy Spirit.

We saw and listened to a priest from India, just as John the Baptist, a precursor, a prophet of these days and a fighter in lots of battles. His silvery beard seemed to have flakes of snow in it,  –how much snow he will have melted!- a burning heart and a charming soul full of God´s beauty.

It was Father James Manjackal, who made us live experiences extremely difficult to be explained. We felt, in every adoration, the presence of the living Jesus, his most inner life, the source of his tenderness and his devotion, the strength of His love, the life of His life, His spirit and even the inspiration of the heard words. Jesus´s Spirit blew on our ‘clay’, vivifying it, filling it with life, curing the sick, awakening the asleep consciences. The lord walked among us, wrapped in the breeze of modesty and humility, and we, as Elias did, knelt down before the gentle breeze of the words we were listening from Father James or before the caress of a smile or a hug from a brother.

The Holy Spirit sounded loudly, as on Pentecost, ‘like a gust of violent wind’, as It blows all over the Church in a new awakening.

When we open ourselves to daily Pentecost, it can be felt a strong energy which changes our hearts and open closed doors; a strong energy which removes tombstones; which moves even the deepest foundations of human structures. And so it was.

Day after day, our souls were becoming filled with the Gospel and prayer.

There was Jesus again to take off ‘the unbearable load ’ we were carrying. (Mt. 11, 28,30; 23, 4, 7) and He changed, as He did in Cana changing water into wine, weakness into strength, the old law into the new one, the law based on fear for the law based on love, the law of ‘you do not sin’ for the law of ‘you will love’. Law of Grace and Spirit.

The assembly presented such an impressive spectacle that made me remember that episode we can read in the Exodus (19, 18) ‘ The whole Sinai smoking, because Yahvé had descended fire-shaped on it’. But on this occasion the people did not tremble with fear, they jumped for joy and praised the Lord, who spread so generously over every heart and every life. He was like a torrent of water, which filled us up with strength, joy, inner cure and love. It was light and fire, breeze and wind, spring and river, cloud and storm, oil and perfume, seals and pledge of hope.

The sweet ‘Host’ accompanied us as a Master of truth, wonderful comforter, embrace that assembled the dispersed, giver of grace and charisma, spiritual director and guide, pure energy of love and union. There, next to Eucharistic Jesus, the Holy Spirit called upon us to unity with ineffable shouts: ‘ I want you all to be one!’

The things we lived were free and unforeseeable, like everything coming from the Spirit. The Spirit is pure liberty. No one can force its coming nor foresee its movements. No one can manipulate It, control It, nor deserve It. It is completely free. It is given as encouragement, as peace, as happiness, as inspiration, as love.

Every day the Eucharist was celebrated by one of the attendant priests. The last day our Bishop Monsignor Benavente said mass; he gave us a very inspired homily in harmony with the retreat. ‘Which nation has got a closer God than us?’  We were feeling it. And he whispered the following words from the Deuteronomy: ‘Do not forget these things your eyes have seen, and do not let them leave your heart. Show them to your children and the children of your children.’

He valued a legitimate theology of the word, since salvation is in It  and It works on our hearts and our minds. He asked us, so that the word can save us, to put It into practice, living all the groups together with love. Jesus´s words were quite clear: ‘Everything that dirties is all that comes from an evil, selfish and absurd heart.’ The real religion comes from a heart, which is open and merciful to every brother.

We finished the retreat with the effusion of the Spirit. There was an imposition of hands and we could hear: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.  Jesus´s  sweets words rang in our hearts. He, full of love, told us: ‘Drink the purest water and the most full-bodied wine. Drink time and time again, as they do not run out. Breathe the cleanest air; get oxygenated with my breath, inhale and exhale well my Spirit, which is breath of life; do it this way: deeply, very deeply and slowly, very slowly, savouring it; let the oxygen of my grace, of my gifts and of my charisma come into your whole soul, mind and blood, in order to get you united with my Spirit . Breathe it well, slowly, deeply, time and time again, indefinitely, eternally.’

And we felt God´s love had filled our hearts. He was the one who qualified us to live inside love. Yes, He was the one who told us: love, forgive, share, serve, give yourself, always, every time you have the chance. Here is the key word, the source of happiness: love, love, love...

I looked for some silence in a garden among the flowers, near the countless beehives there are in that blessed region, rich in honey, and I remembered a prayer I have told in many countries around the world: Your wish, in us, is that which wishes. Your Spirit, divine impulse, is that who converts our nights, which are Yours, into days, which are also Yours. We cannot ask you for anything, because You already know our needs before they spring in our being. You are our need, and giving us more of You, You have given us everything. ¿What else could you give us?

Then, I started to watch some bees flying from one flower to another and I learned that the pleasure of a bee was to get  honey from flowers and the pleasure of a flower was to give its honey to a bee. Since, for a bee, a flower is a source of life. And, for a flower, a bee is a messenger of its love. And, for both of them, bee and flower, the fact of giving and receiving is a need, a pleasure and ecstasy. There, before that lesson from the bees and the flowers, I remembered Father James´s last lesson about supervitamins. What a beautiful thing is to suck in God´s heavenly gardens every day, by the prayer, the sacraments, the Eucharist, the Bible, the community, the prayer group ... the abundant honey, offered by our Father God and get to be messengers of His love!